NEW MATERNITY HOSPITAL

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26745, 31 May 1952, Page 6

NEW MATERNITY HOSPITAL

Opening Of St. Helens Next Month

FOUR-STOREY BUILDING IN COLOMBO STREET

Nearly seven years after the laying of the foundation stone, the new St. Helens Maternity Hospital in Colombo street north will be opened by the Prime Minister (Mr Holland) next month. It will replace the St. Helens hospital in Durham street south, which was built 45 years ago. The new steel and concrete building, which is of four storeys, will accommodate 48 patients, with provision for a further 48 by the building of another wing. All service facilities have been designed for the maximum capacity of 96 patients.

In 1945 the cost of the new hospital was estimated at £383,000, and that sum did not include the cost of laying out the grounds or the provision of tennis courts for the nurses. The .final cost is almost certain to exceed £400,000. St. Helens will become the base hospital for the district for surgical obstetrics, and will be used as a midwifery training centre. There is no indication of how long a period will elapse between the opening ceremony and the admission of the first patients.

The main building is all but completed and drainage and power connexions have been made, but it is still almost bare of equipment and furnishings. The nurses’ home is completed, but here, too, much remains to be done.

The first move in the provision of a new maternity hospital for Christchurch, which, it has been stated frequently, is urgently in need of one, was made in 1939 when the Labour Government bought the St.-Andrews manse site near the Christchurch Public Hospital. The Cabinet had approved the building of another St. Helens at a cost of £119,000. When tenders were called in 1941, however, it was found that the cost of the building and equipment would be £213.640, which was considered prohibitive. The plans were modified, but in February, 1943, the site was sold to the North Canterbury Hospital Board for £11,500, and the Government bought the present site for £12,500. This was announced in June, 1943.

The foundation stone for the new hospital was laid on September 1, 1945, by the Prime Minister (Mr rraser), and at the ceremony the Minister of Health (Mr A. H. Nordmeyer) referred to the good work of the Friends of St. Helens, an organisation which was formed in 1936 and had as one of its interests the furtherance of the project to build a new maternity hospital. On November 9, 1945, Mr Nordmeyer announced that tenders for the construction of the building would be called immediately, and on September 20, 1946, he said that building would commence almost immediately on the site fronting Colombo street. Originally it had been intended that the mam building be placed to front Durham street, but the purchase of another property of an acre and a half allowed the siting to be changed to provide better access.

By the beginning of 1947 a large area had been cleared in preparation for the building of the main block. Three two-storey houses had been moved from the Colombo street frontage to the Durham street side, and these houses have been refurbished to provide part of the accommodation for nurses and domestics. About June, 1947, pile-driving for the foundations began. Four hundred heavy concrete piles had to be driven to a depth of nearly 40 feet. Excavation for the basement began, and progress from this noint was steady. The huge crane used to lift the piles became a familiar part of the landscape for residents in the area, and if the gradual growth of the building passed almost unnoticed by many, it was steady. Handsome Buildin.?

Vast quantities of concrete have been used in the construction of the main hospitiff block, but the liberal use of glass is the feature which first attracts the attention of the visitor. No knowledge of the requirements of a maternity hospital is needed to realise that the new hospital will provide excellent conditions for mothers, babies, and staff. It is a handsome building, airy and sunny, and no detail appears to have been overlooked in providing for the comfort and safety of thosi who will use it.

Glazed Hanmer marble, red quarry tiles, and heart rimu give a pleasant finish to the main vestibule on the ground floor. To the west of the vestibule is the main office, and other offices i r staff. Most of the ceilings in the building are of fibrous plaster, anti most of the corridors and rooms are covered with rubber linoleum A corridor to the right of the vestibule leads to medical officers’ rooms and a changing room and lockers for the domestic staff.

At the south end of the vestibule double doors lead to a vast and impressive kitchen. There is a dining room for domestics, and for the use of the kitchen staff, separate bread, meat vegetable, and milk and butter rooms' The kitcheh proper has quarry tiles ° n the floor and white tiles on the walls. In it there is everything a housewife could desire. A huge stainless steel warming oven flanks two big electric ovens. There is a long coke stove with three ovens, three electric steel boilers for cooking, a large electric griller, another type of electric stove, a vegetable and potato peeling machine, tiled ice boxes, and four more ovens which are opened with wheels which might have come out of a ship’s engine room. Nearby there is another vast electric oven, and a food mixer to make all other food mixers look lik" children’s toys. Close at hand there “ - changing room for the kitchen staff, a food lift, and a big refrigerating unit.

The Nurseries On the east side of the vestibule there is a linen room with a chute which runs to the top of the building. ■This is near the ground floor nursery —there is one on each floor. Yesterday the sun streamed into the nurseries, and it seemed that they will be very pleasant places in which to spend the first few days of one’s life. Each nursery has air conditioning, and acoustic tiles in the ceiling —tnese are used extensively throughout the building. The cubicles have glass tops, and—an important provision—the nurseries are all equipped with tour viewing windows. Each nursery has a refrigerator, and a sun balcony.

Between the ground-floor nursery and the patients’ room there is a sister’s office, and a recess with a steel sink for handling flowers. There is also a ward kitchen and a sterilising room. The patients will all be in single or double rooms. On each floor there are eight single rooms, two double rooms, and a huge sun room on the eastern side of the building, nearest Colombo street. The ground floor sun room is finished in green, and it includes a vast area of glass, in the shape of an outsize bay window. Outside each of the patients’ rooms there is a red light, which shows up when the patient pushes a button. At night this will allow nurses to see easily and quickly, and without any ringing of bells, which patients require attention.

In the south-east corner of the ground floor there is an exercise room for patients, an emergency labour room, a consulting room, a waiting room, a preparation room, a perambulator room, and even a kindergarten for children who have accompanied parents visiting the hospital. The pattern of the patients’ quarters is repeated on the other floors. On the south-east corner of the second floor, however, there is the X-ray de-

partment and dark room, a sister’s office, a doctors’ lounge, and a large concrete balcony on the Colombo street side. On this floor there is an isolation ward for babies, and on the north side of the building a doctors’ dining room and a large dining room for nurses. This has a fine rimu coreboard dado. Between the nurses’ and the sisters' dining room is a wellappointed servicing room, and on the south side of the floor a sterilising room which could not possibly be managed by anyone without an engineer's ticket. The theatre block is on the first floor. It includes three first-stage wards, a doctors’ changing room, two delivery rooms finished in green tiles, and the theatre itself, with a platform round two sides for students under instruction. The only major piece of equipment in place in the theatre so far is a large lamp on a moveable arm over the operating table. At the western end of the second floor is a self-contained flat for the matron. It includes a living room, a kitchenette, a tiled bathroom, and two bedrooms. Nearby is a dispensary, a lecture room, a demonstration room, and the library. The third floor includes a sub-matron’s self-contained flat, a day room, probably for patients, a mattress room, and a store room for patients’ clo’hes. Equipment in Basement In the basement is a maze of equipment used in a variety of hospital services. There is a sub-switch board to feed power to the whole of the building, including the emergency supply from the boilerhouse generators should the M.E.D. supply fail. Part of the equipment will allow a doctor in the theatre to boost the temperature of the conditioned air from 70 degrees to 90 degrees if required. There is a vast plant for refrigeration, and services to the theatre block and babies’ block are separate. There are two 15 horse-power freezing plants; all the sterilising and sink rooms are electrically operated by self-contained independent units; there is a high-pressure steam unit for sterilising. The air conditioning plant brings air down from the roof through a huge air trunk. The air is passed through a 16-panel oil filter to be cleaned, then passed through a main trunk by a fan and heated or cooled, whichever is required. Because it has been made dry by the previous operation, it is passed through a spray chamber which washes and humidifies the air. There are two of these units, one to the delivery rooms and preparation rooms, and the other to the theatre itself.

Oxygen is available from the basement to the theatre, the two delivery rooms, and all the nurseries automatically. When a cylinder of oxygen begins to run low, an is automatically given in the main office. Other equipment supplies pressure steam for washing cans. There are five separate freezer units for the various food rooms in the kitchen, automatic sump pumps, and pumps to circulate hot water through the building for space heating. The installation of all this equipment—and only part of it has been mentioned—has taken several years. To the west of the main block is a porters’ block—a two-storey building of perhaps 5000 square feet. The ground floor is to be used for medical and other stores. On the first floor there are five single bedrooms for porters. finished with plaster as most of the other rooms are. There is a com-fortable-looking lounge, and. a very big balcony facing north.

Nurses' Homes Three nurses’ homes—two of the old two-storey buildings, and a new twostorey one—stand in a line running east and west, between the main building and Durham street. The buildings which have been shifted have been redecorated throughout and now have a most pleasing appearance. The nurses will have single rooms, and the use of a large lounge. The rooms are papered; the blinds are in position, and even the curtains are up. The water radiators used throughout the hospital—often the concealed type—are also used in the nurses’ quarters. The second nurses’ home is connected to the first by a covered porch, and it includes much the same amenities as the first. The third, the new one, is of wood with a stucco veneer. The bedrooms have their dressing tables and wardrobes built in. The fourth building will, probably be used as domestics’ ouarters; it is similar in its finish to the others. All four buildings have two fire escapes. In all, they provide accommodation for 59 nurses and domestics.

Work on making the road which will run through the south side of the property from Durham street to Colombo street is in progress, and a drive, from Colombo street and swinging about a large circular flower bed to the main entrance, is being made. Ultimately much of the area between the nurses’ home and the main building will be laid out in garden. Window cleaning in the new building will be a n.ajor operation, for there are nearly 3000 windows, some of them very large, and in all the main hospital building contains about 25,000 square feet df glass. The new nurses’ home and the porters’ block account for a further 5000 square feet. In the main building, there is about 4000 square yards of rubber linoleum ajid cork coverings, and it is estimated that nearly 230,000 tiles of various types and sizes have been used on floors and walls. The area of the ground floor of the building is about 20,500 square feet. There are three lifts—one for passengers, one for stretchers, one for food. Forty miles of wire has been installed in the main block for various services, and there are about 20 switchboards in it. The fire alarm system is installed, with 15 alarm boxes. Once the glass of a box is broken, the alarm is automatically recorded at the Central Fire Station. An indicator panel in the main hospital office gives the staff the location of the fire. All in all, St. Helens is very nearly ready to receive its most important visitors —the mothers and the children. They will find there conditions of which their forbears could hardly have dreamed, but the provision of such an outstanding hospital is but a continuation of the policy for which New Zealand has been acclaimed the world over for very many years.